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giovedì 16 aprile 2015

The Forest. Third part.

The Forest at Elephant, Fontainebleau. Photo Giulia Paoletti

After 40
days, the last part of my stay has been characterized by twisted emotions and
contradictory feelings. On one hand, I reckoned how many days I had left,
thinking about home, projects, resting and resetting my mind from the hard
stuff. On the other side, the climate of the environment was continuing to make
me feel good and I didn't want to leave the paradisiacal setting which surrounded
me. I felt melancholic and bored at the same time.

I anyway
had some goals I wanted to reach during the last period, despite my two main "projects"
(The Realist and Illusion du Choix) were accomplished. Max came up for one-week
visit in the forest and I was really glad to share some moments with him, climbing
in some of the hidden areas. I climbed few days with Neil Hart as well. He
filmed me in one of the best example of "Font in a nutshell" boulder,
"Paddy" 7C+ and also in "Magic circus" 8A, a double jump in
the southern part of Bleau. Both these problems present a really heinous
mantle, where you have to smear your body and try to rock over without thinking
about the consequences of the fall. A true crap. On Magic circus, after the
first fall on the mantle, I got the upper part with a positive feeling I found
myself almost over the lip. I unfortunately got into the shocking situation
where you are too high to come down, but also too low to be save. I was locked.
My hands started to touch rock in every angles, with the results to get mossy
and find no useful slopers. I couldn't jump down and I couldn't go up. I prayed
Neil to give me a help with the hands, he was stood at the top while filming.
He didn't understand at first; he went on filming. On the second call he gave
me the saving hand and he pulled me out of the terrible situation. The little
fear vanished into copious laughs from every of us. A bit smarter I brushed the
rock around that zone and I found some slopers where I put some chalk on. The
third go I said to Max to be focused on the spotting. I trusted him a lot. Neil
stayed upon the stone, to film what we hoped to be the good go. I stuck the
dyno for the third time and I fortunately rock over without Neil's hand. Great.

When Max
Left I went for the first time to Opium boulders, where in two different days I
was able to climb "Narcotic Direct" 8A+/B and "Jour de
chasse" 8B/+. After this, only 5 days were left. I opted to leave all the
projects away. It didn't matter to climb them at this point. I just wanted to
climb as much as I could, go out and climb with relaxed mind in some areas
where I had never been to. I climbed easy stuff from 5+ till 8A, and they were
probably some of the best days of my trip. I was enjoying a lot. I also asked
to myself why I would have not done more days like these and I took note for
the next trip. The last day was also ending. At half past six I drove to Boissy
Aux Calais ( I am a fun of this area) and I went alone to climb "Les Nobrilistes"
7A+, one of the most aesthetic Font's slab. It required me some goes until the
sunset, when I reached the edge and I said goodbye to Font.

Here is the
list of the line I climbed in the last part (beauty order)

Hotline 7C

Le chainon manquant 7C

Magic
circus 8A

L'aplat du
Gain 8A

Paddy 7C+

Rencontre
du troisieme type assis 7C+

La theorie
du chaos assis 7B+

Le Tailleur
de Mansonges 7C/+

Chasseru de
prises assisi 7C

Return d'Ariane 7C

L'art de la Fugue 8A

La Baleine 7C+

La Chose 7C+

Rencard 7C

Full Metal
Jacket assis 7C

Jour de
Chasse 8B+

Prise
d'Otage 7C+

Narcotic
Direct 8B

Millenium
7C+

Apotheose
assis 8A

Infidele
assis 7C+

Opium 8A

Paddy 7C+, Fontainebleau. Video still by Neil Hart

Narcotic Direct 8B, Fontainebleau. Photo Neil Hart

Appartenance 7C, Fontainebleau. Photo Stefan Kuerzi

Elephunk 8B, Fontainebleau. Photo Stefan Kuerzi

Illusion du Choix 8B, Fontainebleau. Photo Stefan Kuerzi

Living in
Font for 2 months has been an excellent
deal; I probably wrote and said these words countless times, but the area is
actually one of the best ring where the bouldering should take place. It is
flat, it counts tons of hidden rocks, the holds are awesome and, moreover, it
is one of the scarce place where you actually learn to climb and not only pull
damn like a rude. In Font, you can see how the climbing should be understood
and enjoyed beyond the simple action to grab holds and pull them. This is why
my trip had to be special and, in the end, these are the main reasons for which
I got a lovely stay. It has been a simply wonderful school of climbing in a
kind of paradise forest. I hope to have make the idea clear enough.

Some people
also said that my trip has been gorgeous for the problems I climbed and the
bunch of “hard” stuff I sent. Basically I am pretty disappointed on this side
and what I managed to do; the bummer is not actually related to the fact that I
wanted to climb more, but in a deeper analysis, to the reasons that gave me
troubles in trying hard and doing what I desired more.

At the base
of everything I have my skin statement which is giving me serious problems because
they are excessively sweating. The story is pretty long, but I try to make a
summery. Since before 2014 I have always had an ideal and fitting skin for
bouldering. I went to the gym, to granite, to sandstone, to woody fingerboards
and it was always hard, solid, compact and suitable with what I was going to grab.
I could crush the pen’s tip into my upper fingers and they kept its mold for
quite a bit; that was what happened during winter days at school. I knew I
could have no issues from this part, and the fact let me serene.

Since I
came back from US (March 2014), I started to sweat more and more and the good feelings
began to change into a kind of obsession. In June I had to stop for injury, I
came back climbing last September. The first days were pathetic and annoying.
My tips pulled out water from every part, after a couple of moves they were literally
wet. I tried to understand the issue; I mean, it was warm and it was months
that I didn’t climb, so the problem was understandable. My shapes was going
higher again, but the problems persisted. I started to use a mix of Alcohol and
pine resin, before the good goes on my projects. It helped me a little bit for
3 attempts or so, since the sweat didn't come out for a while; without it, everything
would have been thousand times harder. I
tried to accept the situation and not complaining too much. Then I got into the
training mode from December until mid Feb. I knew the alcohol wasn’t the best
solution; I knew that an abuse or an excessive using wouldn’t have been so good;
I hence opted to stop for a period since I wanted to train only. During
Christmas Holiday I went out climbing in Ticino; It was the same story once
again: with alcohol it wasn’t good but even not terrible; without the lotion it was almost
impossible to attempt something hard. The stiff skin tissue of years ago was only
a memory and this made me disappointed.
The issues didn’t get better.

I went to
Font, being quite relieved because sandstone requires usually soft tissue. I
probably got into a good shape and the physical benefits could compensate the
bad skin. In fact, this was what happened. The temperatures after Feb started
to increase a little bit (they were always good but my conditions perceived
this changing a lot). Now, analyzing the whole trip, I could honestly say that
most part of the ascents I did and all the failures I got, were only accorded
to my skin statements. My physical shape was good, my mental approach got a
little step ahead, the friction was most of the times perfect, the mood was
positive and many things seemed to roll in the best ways like rarely happens. This
is sad and frustrating, since almost everything was depending on the skin and
this made me sliding many times.

At some
point, the issue also started to attach my mental approach and my motivation as
well. I started to be more nervous under the boulders and the patience was
always less and less. The motivation and the desire are starting to turn off,
especially in the last part of my stay. Now that I came back home, I need time
to rest and to recover them in order to try some products which can dry it a
little bit. This can help the issue, but on the other side I would not
understand the drastic change and the true causes. I think I will also make analysis
and see if it can be linked to metabolism or alimentation. Meanwhile, if
someone has some advice I would be glad to hear.

Since I was
telling about the dark side of my Font’s trip, I also reckoned the boulders I
tried which have eluded me. This is not too bad since it can be source of
motivation to come back in the Forest more prepared and with a good skin that I
hope to get soon. Below it, some pictures I made.